Big quarter all around. Street margins and accretion from refinancing/buyback need to go higher going forward.
“The first quarter of 2011 produced our best overall financial performance in the last two years. We find it very encouraging that all our properties improved year over year in Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin."
- Gordon Kanofsky, Ameristar’s Chief Executive Officer
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE RELEASE
- "Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA margin improved ...to 31.2% in the current-year first quarter, representing the highest consolidated Adjusted EBITDA margin since our acquisition of the East Chicago property in September 2007."
- “Ameristar St. Charles is weathering the new competition well, with improvements in net revenues and Adjusted EBITDA on a sequential basis for the third consecutive quarter."
- Debt: $1.49BN
- "Prior to the refinancing closing on April 14, 2011 described below, we repaid an additional $15.0 million of debt on a net basis in the second quarter of 2011."
- [Interest rate decrease] "The decrease is due mostly to the July 2010 expiration of our two interest rate swap agreements and a lower overall debt balance."
- Capex: $10.9MM
- "The repurchase of 45% of our outstanding shares of common stock and an estimated increase of only $6 million in annualized interest expense at current interest rates is expected to provide immediate accretion to earnings per share and free cash flow per share, excluding certain one-time costs.”
- 2Q11 Outlook:
- D&A: $26-27MM
- Interest expense: $25-26MM (includes non-cash interest expense of $1.7MM)
- Tax rate: 42-43%
- Capex: $10-15MM
- Non cash stock comp: $4.5-5MM
- FY11 Interest expense: $104-109MM (includes non-cash interest expense of $7MM)
CONF CALL NOTES
- Think that top line growth came from efficiency, marketing effectiveness, and quality of their properties
- East Chicago improvements are partly attributed to normalized table hold in the quarter compared to low hold last year last year. Continue to speak to the state regarding the bridge closure.
- Kansas City: Clearly seeing some cycling out of of the recession. Improved their market share.
- Council Bluffs: Reached its highest quarterly market share (we believe 39.5%) since the re-opening and rebranding of a competitor in 2006
- Have controlled costs well and have taken steps to reduce volatility in their table game play
- Pleased with cost controls at Blackhawk, which resulted in one of their best margin quarters
- Improvements in the quarter were achieved despite a decrease in their promotional allowances
- Returned to normal table game hold this quarter
- Leverage at 3/31: 4.46x and fixed charge coverage: 2.19x
- Fixed charge coverage ratio goes away in the new facility
- Pro-forma for the transaction of net leverage 5.9x
- Used about 40% of their EBITDA for debt reduction
- From a FCF standpoint the transaction is better than neutral given the dividend savings on the reduced number of shares outstanding
- Current stock comp is elevated due to the transaction and Neilson's stock comp. Should return to $3.5-4.0MM by 3Q
- Expiration of the swaps will save them $8MM
- They should be able to pay down $40-45MM of debt in 2Q
- Their plan is to delever quickly, assuming a stable stock multiple - the retirement of debt should add several dollars per share of stock value
- They are more likely to favor acquisition vs. greenfield projects and prefer NA to international markets. They believe that their superior margin structure provides them with the unique capability to make accretive asset acquisitions
Q&A
- Capex for the year: $65-70MM including the start of the KC hotel
- Taken steps to make sure that table game hold remains more stable. While they looked for economic growth they planned for economic weakness, and so they continued to cut things that don't impact guest or employee satisfaction. Obviously, they have been more efficient on promotional spending as well.
- 1Q is always their strongest margin quarter, they don't know if they will maintain those margins per say but margins should be good for the rest of the year
- Don't see impact from gas prices
- There weren't any real one-time benefits in the quarter.
- They are not planning on selling any assets given the pricing environment out there
- Share count - at YE the share count will be a little over 40MM but 33.5-33.6 will be the total reduced number of shares
- They are seeing slightly better play from their long term existing players
- HET is losing share to them because of their inability to keep their properties fresh
- The mid 30% Blackhawk margin is probably a pretty good margin for that property
